


Air Like Darkness

by Eclectic_Goddess



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers (Comic), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Nightmares, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 16:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eclectic_Goddess/pseuds/Eclectic_Goddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cougar has nightmares.  Thankfully, he also has Jensen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Air Like Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> A crossover between comic and movie-verses, though you need not be familiar with both to follow. Feel free to read with slash goggles on. As with most of my writing, they fit very well here.

_It’s Afghanistan again. The tunnels, and the cold, and the dry, sickly smell. There are noises in the dark, tiny furtive movements all around him. He had a lamp on his helmet, but he doesn’t light it, not yet. He doesn’t want to see. He knows what happens then._

_The smell is so bad. It’s impossible that it was ever that bad. He can barely breathe. He gags on the air. His body rejects it, makes him work to get any in, forces it out with a heaving cough._

_This isn’t right. He’s going the wrong way. He’ll be lost down there forever, with no air. He needs to turn on the light._

_Even as he’s railing against it, he turns on the light._

_The bodies are there, but the bodies aren’t the worst part. The worst part is the people. People still alive, though he can’t fathom how. Bones protrude through flesh. Muscles hang raw and exposed where skin has cracked and split. Hands with fingers eaten away stretch toward him. They are rotting corpses who haven’t figured out how to die yet, and they are begging him for help._

_Begging him for death._

_He wants to give it to them. He wants to. He has a rifle. He could do it. It would be a mercy._

_But the children are there, too._

_Crouching in the shadows, peeking around corners, round little faces and bright eyes. They don’t belong there, among all that death. He has to get them out._

_He calls to them, and they come. They step over piles of bones and slide between bars. They come, and they change. They burn. They don’t cry out, but they just keep coming, and the smell, oh Dios, the smell of them burning, and he can’t save them because it’s too late they’re already dead and they’re reaching for him and he can’t…_

“Breathe, Cougar…breathe.”

He tries. His chest is clenched up tight. There is no room for air, and he’s afraid of it, anyway.

“Come on, man. You gotta ride this out. You can do it. You’ve done it before. Just breathe.”

He chokes. He wants to crawl away from it, but there’s nowhere to go. Someone is holding his arm, and he tries to throw them off, but somehow that brings them closer. Strong arms go around his shoulders, a solid body pressed against his back.

“I got you, Cougar. I got you. Just one good breath. One good breath and it will get better.”

He’s not sure it should get better, but somehow he sucks in a mouthful of air. There’s no death in it, no decay. He blows it back out and tries for another, getting more this time.

“That’s it. Keep going. Keep breathing.”

He’s being pulled upright, and he doesn’t fight it. He leans back against that body, letting it support his weight while he focuses on relearning to breathe. Some part of him thinks he should still be fighting, resisting the comfort being offered, but he doesn’t have the strength.

It seems like a long time before each breath isn’t an effort, before his heart slows its gallop. He realizes that he’s on the floor next to his bed. That’s all right. The floor is smooth and stable beneath him, and there’s nowhere else to fall. He can see the neon light of the cantina across the street shining through the windows, a familiar pattern of blue and red on the walls. He’s in Bolivia, not in Afghanistan.

Jensen is with him. Jensen is sitting on the floor with him, still holding him upright. Jensen is breathing with him.

“You back now?” Jensen asks quietly.

Cougar nods.

“Bad one.”

It wasn’t a question. They all seem bad to him, each one worse than the last.

“It’s cool. Take your time. I got you.”

Closing his eyes, Cougar breathes.

 

The End


End file.
